Chapter 15

Exactly three hundred and sixty-five sun Earth turns since Elaine first set foot into the forest, she woke up alone. She could feel the solitude even before she awoke. Her dreams were filled with a crying infant, longing for a bottle, wondering where its mother was. When she sat up, the fire was out, and the gray smoke was curling tendrils into the air and disappearing; Margaret and Renard were nowhere to be found. 

At first, Elaine told herself that they were merely going to find some water or game, that they would be back soon. She ignored that tiny, mean little voice that told her to panic. However, when she stood up to stretch, she found a roll of parchment sitting close enough to the fire for her to warrant its notice but far enough away that it would not get singed by any errant spark. Elaine picked it up, unrolled it, and read:

Dear Elaine,

This is your final test. Go fifty paces due east, and you will find a maze. Enter it. You will face three monsters and you must defeat them using the magic you have learned. You can do it. We believe in you.

Margaret and Renard 

Elaine curled the paper in her hands, balled it up, and tossed it into the remains of the fire. Her heart began pounding. So this was it. The final test. It was worse than any she had ever known, for now she was alone.

Completely and utterly alone. 

Fear gripped her chest, and she began to wheeze. 

Breathe in, there is nothing bad happening at the moment, breath out, everything is going to be fine. 

Elaine had never known such loneliness before. She had always felt the sting of adolescent cruelty, when other girls excluded her, or when her parents thought her too young for some task or other. Now she was completely alone, in the Deep Forest, with no one to help her. 

A burning sensation began to replace the fear in her chest. It was anger, hot, molten, smoldering. She glanced around wildly, hoping that it was a trick, and that she would see Renard's cute, furry face, or Margaret's frizzy gray hair. 

Not so. 

"Grraaah!" Elaine yelled into the emptiness. "Why did you do this to me? Why did you leave me alone? I hate you!"

The forest echoed her screams, bouncing them back to her: I hate you, I hate you, I hate you... the ugliness of the words, although fading from the echo, stood sharp in her mind. 

Her body buzzed with energy. There was only one way to get them back. (If they even will come back. Their letter said nothing about them returning, Elaine thought savagely.) She would have to face their final riddle. She would go into the maze. 

She stomped off, the leaves crunching under her boots. The early morning air was silent and still. 

Just as Margaret had explained, there was a huge maze approximately fifty paces from their campsite. How Elaine never noticed it before she figured must have something to do with the forest's own magic. A line of hedges fifty feet high greeted her, with an iron gate as the entrance. It swung open slowly at her approach. Elaine stepped carefully inside. 

The inside of the maze was just as the outside: it appeared to be rows and rows of hedges, zig-zagging, with deadends and false beginnings, but with one important exception. From the inside, a huge, iron dome topped the maze, so that Elaine felt like a bird in a cage. She walked in. 

Fog clung to the ground, and the burning anger that had propelled Elaine was starting to fade now, leeching out into the cold dirt. She was breathing heavily, and sweat broke out on her brow. She walked quickly, desperate to get to the center, hoping that she would see Margaret's face once she arrived. 

There was no way to know how deep the maze went or how long it would take her. With each dead end, she swallowed her frustration and retraced her steps, but panic was making it hard to remember which paths she had already taken; everything looked the same. 

When she turned a corner, she came to a wide, open clearing. 

Surely it couldn't be this easy? She thought. 

Then she heard a deep, low growl. It sounded cross between a crocodile and lion. It rumbled the ground around her, and Elaine's throat went dry immediately. The ground began to shake beneath her. Elaine tried to steel herself for whatever was coming. 

A soft hiss escaped from the hedges, and Elaine's blood ran cold. A huge, hideous face covered in scales emerged from the leaves. Two horns twisted up from its forehead, and smoke slithered from its nostrils. 

It was a dragon. Elaine stared at it, its ancient, reptilian eyes cold and heartless. It would show no mercy. It slunk into the area, moving so lazily that Elaine was for a moment paralyzed by fear. A tiny voice reminded her, Do not panic. 

But when the dragon breathed a huge jet of flame directly at her, that was exactly what she did. 

"Aaaaah!!!" Elaine screamed and dodged the fire, nearly getting singled. She barrel rolled on the ground, then sprinted to one side of the hedges, hoping to jump through them to the other side. As she tore at leaves and branches, their sharp points and edges cutting her hands, she discovered that there was a solid, rock wall behind the hedges. What appeared to be permeable was solid. 

The dragon began to inhale for another breath of fire. 

Elaine screamed again, the animal instinct tearing from her throat as she dodged it again. Sweat poured from Elaine's forehead and her thoughts blurred together until there was just one thought: Survive. 

The dragon quickly became tired of a running meal. It slunk the rest of its body out of the bushes, unfurled its wings and lifted into the air, ready to come down in a deadly strike. Its red and orange scales glinted in the sunlight, so bright that it seemed a living flame itself.

The air paused around Elaine. She was awed by the dragon, how graceful it flew into the air, deadly though it was. 

That is what Margaret meant by flying, thought Elaine. The dragon does not think about flying. It just does. 

Suddenly, something clicked in Elaine; she finally understood. She imagined herself lifting into the air and then she was. Her feet left the ground and she felt a rush and dizziness. Her giddiness of finally achieving flight, however, was cut short by the fireballs aimed at her head. 

It was much easier to avoid the fire now that she could move in three dimensions, but the dragon was agile and quick, despite being enormous. She zoomed from one side of the arena to the other, when she realized she was not confined to two directions. She tried flying upward, ever upward, hoping to fly up and out of the arena. However, as she flew higher, she ran into the iron bars she had seen at the beginning of the maze. 

Ah, so that's why, she thought. 

And if she had been hoping to simply fly directly to the center of the maze, those hopes were quickly dashed. From her position in the air, all she saw when she looked down at the maze was hazy darkness, a blackness so deep that it obscured everything. There would be no shortcuts. 

The dragon let out a roar, and Elaine's heart jumped. She had to find some way to defeat the dragon and quick; she was losing energy fast but the dragon showed no signs of stopping. She flew back down into the arena and the dragon followed. 

Think! What would Renard say? She thought. He would say stop avoiding what's frightening and face it head on. 

Then, she had it. She knew what to do. 

She landed on the arena, turned, and faced the dragon. It too, landed, pleased that its prey had finally given up the chase. It opened its mouth wide, ready for the final spray of fire. Elaine could see the heat gather in its throat. Elaine had no idea if her plan would work. She had so many doubts about herself, about her magic, that she did not know if she would succeed or be turned into a pile of charcoal. But, she had to try. 

She lifted, floated up, right at eye level with the huge beast. She imagined its fire becoming water, turning all of the heat into cold. 

Elaine felt fear leave her. The magic was so easy to tap into now. She simply expected its fire to turn into water, felt the magic well up in her, and released it. 

The dragon let loose a spray of fine mist. 

It was hard to say who was more surprised, Elaine or the dragon. Elaine still managed to dodge the water, but without the life-preserving urgency she had had before. The dragon, with a silly, bewildered look on its face, tried to breathe fire again, only to breathe out the chilly mist. 

The dragon, completely at a loss at what to do, and scared of what else might happen to it if it attacked Elaine again, slunk back into the hedges. Only when the last of its tail disappeared did Elaine breathe a sigh of relief. She pressed on. 

Once she left the arena, Elaine tested her newly found flying powers again. She floated, lifted and practiced going in different directions. At first, she found it difficult to steer herself in the right direction, but after several attempts, she found it much easier to navigate. 

The maze was enormous, with widing, twisting pathways. The ground was not level throughout; sometimes, it rose in sharp hills, or there were stairs leading down, but always with the fifty foot high wall of hedges around her. 

The days were growing late, and it seemed as though Elaine were no closer to discovering the middle of the maze. Shadows stretched long, and the sun was beginning to sink toward the earth. Evening birds sang their full throated lullabies around her. 

As Elaine walked, something about the dragon tugged at her. Something did not quite add up about how the dragon had behaved. Yes, it had breathed fire, and yes, it had hunted her, just like any other dragon would do, but that wasn't it. It was something that the dragon had done, but the detail kept escaping Elaine. She tried to think of what it was, but it kept slipping away. 

Elaine realized that it was becoming darker, and she still had not yet met the second monster. She readied herself, steeling herself for whatever may lay around the next corner. 

She did not have to wait long. 

She could smell it before she could see it. Her nose was assaulted by the smell of rotting meat, garbage, and unwashed body. When she smelled the putrefaction, she could feel herself tensing for the next battle. When she rounded the corner, she saw an ogre. 

It stood at least ten feet tall, with huge folds of skin, and a grotesque pig snout jutting from its face. It wore skins of animals, and had a bone through its nostrils. Unlike the dragon, the ogre had the glint of intelligence in its eyes. It was ugly, cruel, and terrifying. 

Elaine stood her ground. Even with something as large as this, she thought she could easily defeat it. She imagined summoning fire, to burn it to smithereens. She reached for the power, felt it course through her and release. She shot out a bolt of fire at the ogre, but when the fire got close, the ogre seemed to absorb it. Then, the ogre mimicked Elaine's handwork and the fire shot back out directly at Elaine!

Elaine tried again; when the ogre came running at her, she created a spell to lift the ogre into the air and throw it several paces away. When she released the magic, she watched at the ogre sailed in a graceful arc and tumble several feet away. However, almost as soon as the ogre touched the ground, Elaine felt herself lift into the air and tumble back, as if she had cast the spell on herself. 

Suddenly, Elaine realized that whatever spell she threw at the ogre, it would simply bounce back to her. She didn't know if ogres were naturally magical, or it was some property of this ogre, but whatever she tried, it would come back to hit her as well. 

Rule Number One of Magic, thought Elaine. Every action has an equal reaction. 

That meant that she couldn't throw fire, couldn't throw the ogre, and couldn't transform him into anything. Well, at least anything she didn't want to be transformed into herself. 

At least, the ogre didn't appear to be charging. It just seemed to be waiting. But when Elaine looked closer, she saw that the ogre was guarding a door. 

She looked closely at the ogre; it really was hideous, with warts dotting its face, leathery mud-colored hide, and hands with sharp nails. She wondered how she could ever defeat something so large without the use of magic or weapons. 

Then, something started to shift and click in her mind. The dragon had been able to go through the hedges, but when she had approached them, they had appeared to be made of solid stone. Maybe then, that meant that the dragon was made out of the same stuff as the maze. Maybe this ogre was the same. Maybe, this ogre was not really dangerous, after all. 

In a flash of insight, Elaine knew what to do. She walked slowly up to the ogre. She glared menacingly, and drool eeked out of the side of its mouth, dripping onto the ground. 

"I know you," said Elaine. "And you're not going to harm me."

The smell from the ogre overwhelmed her as she came closer. It was all she could do not to gag or run away. Yet she reached up, wrapped her arms around the ogre, and hugged it. 

The ogre's eyes grew wide and soft, and it reached down to pat Elaine on the head. Slowly, Elaine felt the ogre start to lose shape. Its body became less solid, and it shifted, as it broke apart into a thousand pieces, and each one became a tiny butterfly. The butterflies hovered a moment, then fluttered away on the wind. 

Elaine turned and walked through the door. When she opened it, she was surprised at what she saw. 

She had found the center of the maze. It was a small, circular opening, much like the arena with the dragon. In the center stood a round stone table, with intricate carvings along the top and sides. It stood in the center of a series of concentric rings, each becoming smaller and smaller as they led to the table. Hovering above the table, in a wash of blue light, floated a mirror, much like the one Margaret had. It was oval and gilded in silver, with elegant curls to it. 

Elaine looked around. She thought there were supposed to be three monsters, but it appeared that she had reached the end of the maze. She walked up to the mirror. She knew that she had to look into it.

When she gazed into it, it was hazy, and cloudy at first. Elaine stilled her mind, breathed deeply, and concentrated. 

The mirror became clearer the longer she looked. Soon, it reflected Elaine's face just how she was: a little dirty from her journey, one year older, and with a more determined look in her eyes. She was not the same as when she first began her journey into the woods. She was calmer, stronger, a fighter. She was braver. 

Then, the mirror began to shift, and Elaine's face drifted away, until the mirror reflected nothing, not even the maze behind her. All of a sudden, images zoomed past: fields and streams, houses, castles; scenes of war, famine, celebrations, marriages, births, deaths. The images zoomed by so quickly that they began to blur together until Elaine couldn't distinguish any of them. 

Elaine knew that she was seeing the future. Then, what she saw next, she couldn't believe. It filled her with horror, a feeling of sickness. It was her final fear. She thought she had been afraid when she had to face tiny things, like cockroaches or spiders; she thought she had been afraid when she encountered the knights, the thieves, carnivorous plants, or the dragon, but they had all been pale comparisons to what she saw in the mirror now. She didn't want to believe it was true, but she knew that it was. 

"No," she said in a horrified whisper. "No, no, no!" she said, growing louder. With both hands, she snatched the mirror out of the air, then hurled it against the side of the table. It shattered, the glass breaking, the sound deafening in her ears. 

As soon as she had broken the mirror, the maze began to melt, like fine mist into the air. The hedges disappeared, the iron cage above melted into the air, and soon, all that was left around her was the forest again. Margaret and Renard stood waiting for her.

"Well done," she said. "You passed."

Elaine ran over to them and fell into Margaret's arms.